The Pyramids of London

EIGHT

Rian was too relieved that he’d shown up to be annoyed or frightened when the so-called Comfrey Makepeace dropped without warning from the sky. Two days contemplating vampirism had made stark many things she did not want to give up, sunlight being only the beginning.

“Do you always arrive from above?”

“Do you always have a trail of powerful creatures turning up in your orbit?” he asked, voice as languid and dreaming as it had been in Lord Msrah’s library. “What was it that your collection of children were talking about that comes in groups to sit on the wall?”

“Ravens.”

“Oh.” His tone turned dismissive. “That’ll be the Oak lot. They never shut up about who should have the role of Keeper here.”

“Lovely.” Rian frowned at the scene in the Hall, with excited children pelting down stairs, and a collection of neighbours clustering toward Dama Chelwith.

“Dem Comfrey!” Dama Chelwith, hands on the heads of two of the children, smiled warmly. “A most timely arrival.”

“Good to see you again, Reswen. Can you arrange those still here into groups, so they’re not alone when returning to their homes? And let the local constabulary know. I doubt this visitor is interested in passers-by, but there’s always the possibility of a chance encounter. I’ll look to see if it’s still in the area.”

He walked back into the grove, while Rian turned her attention to Griff, bright-faced from running, and urgently tugging her sleeve.

“He said Ma’at vampires can tell when people are lying!” Griff whispered, then added in a louder voice: “Did you see? What was out there?”

“Something between a bull and a bear,” Rian said, adding to Dama Chelwith: “Are attacks on the grove common?”

“I would say ‘no’,” Dama Chelwith replied, “but I’m afraid I have no real way of knowing whether there are many incidents such as this. The folies ably repel any who would enter by stealth or force.”

“Would be no roof tiles left if that happened very often,” Eleri said, trotting down the final set of stairs. “Maybe followed the vampire here.”

“Perhaps.” Rian smiled at the two girls trailing Eleri, ignoring their startled reaction to a close view of her unveiled face. “Thank you for all your help today. Hopefully it won’t be so dramatic in the future.”

“You didn’t run away,” said the girl she’d first seen coming out of the house opposite. “Weren’t you frightened?”

“A little. But I could see how many folies there were.” A dozen or more, for all that she’d been quite sure there’d been only one a short while earlier.

It took some time to clear the house, to send on their way people who wanted to speculate about monsters, and remark on the fact that she could see in the dark, and didn’t she look young? The practice with the multiple front doors appeared to be to leave the small outer access door open, with a lantern in the vestibule, and as Dama Chelwith led her grandchildren off, Griff helpfully tested a bellpull that seemed to sound in all parts of the house.

“Go wash up now,” Rian said, ushering him inside and closing the house door. “We’ll talk over dinner.”

“Do you think he’ll come back?” Griff asked, so worked up he began spinning around his sisters. “Did he do—what does he have to do to make you not become a vampire?”

“I have no idea. I never knew there was more to it than an exchange of blood and ka.”

“Hope he doesn’t get eaten by a bear before the next step,” Eleri observed.

“That would be awkward.”

Rian left them to clatter back up one floor, and headed for the kitchen. The benefits of electrical wiring had not yet reached Lamhythe, but Forest House had otherwise been well maintained and fitted with modern conveniences before its closure. Dama Chelwith had even managed to arrange for the gas line to be reconnected and the geyser carefully checked over before it was lit. There was a scattering of fulquus-powered lamps, but the fulgite was missing, a discovery that had caused considerable embarrassment among the crowds of volunteers, and had warned Rian that the house was not necessarily so well-defended as the grove.

All this eager generosity would require some form of reciprocal gesture Rian decided, surveying a kitchen table laden with covered dishes. She totted up the likely cost of afternoon tea for an entire neighbourhood, then turned sharply at a faint sound.

Her reflection scattered among panes of glass, but the gas light was not so bright she couldn’t see through to tree trunks. Nothing else. But her new awareness of blood made clear two tiny rivers in the branches above the windows. Having seen what they were capable of, Rian was not certain if she should find the folies’ presence comforting, and noted absently that her hands were shaking.

That was not due to the garden battle. Instead it was a third presence, directly above her now, with a heartbeat much slower than any other she had felt. A slight and ancient creature descending the stairs.

Rian was not by nature inclined to nerves, but her hands would not still, so she busied them clearing the table, uncovering such dishes best eaten immediately, and searching out plates and glasses. Pride and simple common sense told her to set fear aside, to overcome the memory of teeth. She had gone to Sheerside House to become a meal for a vampire, and the extreme she had encountered was as much a part of the stone blood’s existence as Lord Msrah’s scheduled domesticity.

Standing at the head of the table, she met the eyes of her vampire.

A thousand years had produced quite a collection of portraits of the Wind’s Dog. Rian had seen Vensium’s, and Tylette’s, and the mosaic at Salinae. All rather different images, but every one featuring a hollow-cheeked man with streaming black hair, a banner of darkness. Prytennia’s infamous assassin and spy.

Rather than hidden death, this short, slender and tousle-haired youth called to mind a dreaming poet. He was far better dressed this time around, but there was still a weary calm about him, lightly mixed with derision.

Entirely without intending to, Rian raised her hands and clapped them together, producing a staccato beat. Astonished, she struggled to stop herself, then realised what was happening.

“Very funny.”

“Hilarious.” He allowed her hands to still. “And you’d give someone this control over you for a tidy yearly sum.”

“For something I wanted, at least. I take it this means you’ve done whatever was needed to complete the binding?”

He didn’t reply, but did something. Rian swayed, overwhelmed by a wave of dizziness. It felt like all her blood was running backward. Groping for the nearest chair, she dropped into it.

“I’ve asserted control over the colony,” he said, watching with a complete lack of sympathy as she gasped and shuddered. “An interesting sensation. Part of myself, sitting before me.”

Refusing to lose her temper, Rian closed her eyes briefly, then managed to say: “You’ve never bound anyone before?”

“I’ve no interest in building a herd. Or keeping you as a pet. Forest House should sufficiently cover whatever income I can be said to have cost you.”

This was excellent news. “How long before the binding wears?”

“One to two months, usually. We’ll see what happens.”

There was a note to this answer that she didn’t like, and she studied him narrowly. “But?”

He lifted a shoulder. “The colony is at a self-sustaining level, dominant in your system. It’s unlikely to diminish naturally.”

In the pause that followed Rian could distinctly hear running feet, could sense the bright river that was Griff, racing not to miss out on any excitement. She thought of strawberries, and sex, and hoped the Wind’s Dog would do her the favour of not dying in the near future.

“So I will inevitably become…a kind of vampire that can tell when people are lying?”

His expression changed, the smallest alteration, and for the first time Rian truly believed that this boy was Heriath, famous for dealing in death.

Then he tch-ed, and sat down at the opposite end of the table, dropping the air of menace—or perhaps simply hiding it once again behind the guise of something less dangerous. “That tedious prig told you.”

“I was curious to see whether you would. And yet, I can tell if people are lying, sometimes.”

“The heart beats faster. The liar’s emotions intensify, are more controlled, or don’t match the words. It’s not so sure as the Ma’at line, who simply see lies as a colour. But more nuanced.”

Aware of Griff’s rapid approach, Rian said: “I’ll keep that in mind,” and philosophically abandoned any thought of giving him half-truths.

The Amon-Re line, that of Egypt’s god of air and sun, was rumoured to possess all manner of gifts, but none were confirmed beyond the usual unnatural speed and strength, and the pharaoh’s unique ability to command other stone blood. Makepeace—it would be simpler to call him that—had also done something to hold the sphinx in place. As his Bound, Rian would possess only a pale echo of his powers, but they would still be useful for her investigations.

“Did you catch it? Did you kill it?”

All bright enthusiasm, Griff approached her vampire with far less caution than Rian would prefer, but Makepeace didn’t seem bothered, merely turning his head to study the boy.

“Should I have killed it? Would you have liked that?”

Griff, who had somehow managed to achieve scrubbed-pink cleanliness in less time than it would take Rian to walk to the bathroom, plucked at the seam of his shendy, but showed no other concern at the question.

“Well, I don’t want it to come back,” he explained. “Could you kill it? If all you can do is tell when people are lying?”

“I also hit quite hard,” Makepeace said, as Eluned and Eleri arrived, less obviously excited, but almost as speedy as their brother. “And killing it wouldn’t tell me why it was here, or what it wanted.” He turned back to Rian. “Though perhaps you can answer that.”

“Does that mean you didn’t catch it?” Rian asked, and suspected from his lack of response that he had expected to, and was annoyed. “And no, I don’t know either. I have at most some wide guesswork.” She surveyed her small audience, then said: “Sit down, you three. We can talk while we eat.”

Makepeace waited without comment as food was dispensed, but when Rian introduced the Tennings he said: “Is this something you want children involved with?”

“They were involved before I,” Rian said. “Eluned, will you tell him the start of it?”

Eluned, however, had other points to cover first. Finely-sketched brows drawn together, she said: “How did you get here? The grove might be in shadow, but most of the streets weren’t.”

“Perhaps I’ve been here all along.”

“What? Is there a secret room?” Griff stood up, clearly ready to race off to hunt for it. “It would be in the cellar, wouldn’t it? Do you live down there?”

“Is he lying?” Eluned asked Rian, but Rian couldn’t tell, and said so.

“Could have been nearby,” Eleri said, frowning in response to Makepeace’s faintly amused expression. “Or took an enclosed car.”

“But is there a secret room?” Griff repeated.

“There’s a safe hidden about somewhere, I know that,” Makepeace said. “Though I haven’t a clue where. What, then, is the start of it?”

“Fulgite,” Eluned said. “Artificial fulgite.”